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Is there anyway to salvage my investment for short-term?
No. If by "salvage" you mean "get back as much as you paid", the only way to salvage it is to wait as long as you consider "short-term" and see if goes up again. If by "salvage" you mean "get some money back", the only thing you can do to guarantee that is sell it now. By doing so, you guarantee ...

It would be useful to forget about the initial price that you invested - that loss happened, it's over and irreversible, it's a sunk cost; and anchoring on it would only cause you to make worse decisions. Getting "back" from a loss is done exactly the same as growing an investment that didn't have such a loss.
You have x units of stock that's currently ...

No. You should only donate appreciated stock.
If you own a stock at a loss, you can only deduct the FMV (fair market value) when you donate. Instead, you should sell it, take the loss on your taxes, and donate the cash.

I had a coworker whose stock picking skills were clearly in the 1% level. I had a few hundred shares of EMC, bought at $10. When my coworker bought at $80, I quietly sold as it spiked to $100. It then crashed, as did many high tech stocks, and my friend sold his shares close to the $4 bottom advising that the company would go under. So I backed up the truck ...

You use Form 4684.
Unfortunately, it doesn't flow through Schedule D to offset gains, but through Schedule A, itemized deductions. Depending on your current itemized total, some or all of your loss made not benefit you. (e.g. if you don't already itemize, you need to first pass the threshold for your filing status, $6350 single, $12,700 married.

You probably bought the stock near the peak because "it's been up a lot lately." That's the easiest way to lose money.
You need to go back and do some basic research. The stock appears to have been expensive around 75. Why is that? The stock seems to be in a "comfortable" level around 45. Why is THAT? Maybe it's too expensive around 45 (based on the P/E ...

You should be worried. You have made the mistake of entering an investment on the recommendation of family/friend. The last think you should do is make another mistake of just leaving it and hoping it will go up again.
Your stock has dropped 37.6% from its high of $74.50. That means it has to go up over 60% just to reach the high of $74.50. You are correct ...

No, it doesn't work like this. Your charitable contribution is limited to the FMV.
In your scenario your charitable contribution is limited by the FMV, i.e.: you can only deduct the worth of the stocks. It would be to your advantage to sell the stocks and donate cash.
Had your stock appreciated, you may be required to either deduct the appreciation amount ...

Edited in the light of comments and follow-on questions
Your mutual fund manager buys and sells securities in pursuit of
the investment strategies
of the fund as well as to invest new money coming in and to pay out investors wanting to take their money elsewhere. This results in capital gains and losses for the fund.
The net capital gain is taxable income ...

You are not the person or entity against whom the crime was committed, so the Casualty Loss (theft) deduction doesn't apply here. You should report this as a Capital Loss, the same way all of the Enron shareholders did in their 2001 tax returns. Your cost basis is whatever you originally paid for the shares. The final value is presumably zero. You can ...

If you're asking this question, you probably aren't ready to be buying individual stock shares, and may not be ready to be investing in the market at all.
Short-term in the stock market is GAMBLING, pure and simple, and gambling against professionals at that. You can reduce your risk if you spend the amount of time and effort the pros do on it, but if you ...

Capital losses offset capital gains. If you have long term capital gains - your short term losses will offset them. After that - total capital losses (if your gains are less than your losses) offset your general income up to a certain level ($3000 for a single person). If you still have losses remaining that are above that level - you carry them over to the ...

In addition to the form JoeTaxpayer pointed you to, I recommend that you look at IRS publication 547 which includes instructions on how to obtain tax help for deducting losses. If the loss is greater than your income, you have a Net Operating Loss which can be carried forward to reduce your taxes in future years as well.

would you earn $600 or $1600?
You would have $1600, and your earnings would be $600.
That's the only answer it could be, since if you start with $1000 from your savings, then it's impossible for you to have also earned that money in the stock market.
When you sell, do you keep your original capital, ($1000)?
If you own a car which you bought for $1000,...

If you know you have picked a bad stock, the sooner you sell the better. There is a tendency to hold a bad stock in the hope that it will pick up again. Most of us fall into this trap.
The best way one needs to look at things are;
If you had the same amount of money [suppose you sold it], would you buy this stock at this price? If the answer is yes, hold ...

I agree, one should not let the tax tail wag the investing dog.
The only question should be whether he'd buy the stock at today's price. If he wishes to own it long term, he keeps it. To take the loss this year, he'd have to sell soon, and can't buy it back for 30 days. If, for whatever reason, the stock comes back a bit, he's going to buy in higher.
To ...

It depends on a few factors, but it's pretty easy to nail down.
If fair market value (FMV) when gifted was higher than your grandparents' basis, then you use their basis, but can adjust that basis up if they paid gift tax.
So, if your grandparents had a $500 basis, gifted to you when the value was $1000, then your basis is $500.
If fair market value when ...

Capital losses are not itemized deductions, which means that they are not part of the deductions that you need to forgo if you take the standard deduction.
Instead, you report all capital gains and losses on Schedule D, and the resulting net gain or loss gets entered in the Income section of your Form 1040 on line 13.
You are limited to deducting up to $...

You likely received the shares as ordinary income for services of $10k, since they withheld taxes at granting. Separately, you likely had a short term capital loss on sale of $2k, since your holding period seems to have been under one year.

While you'd need to pay tax if you realized a capital gain on the sale of your car, you generally can't deduct any loss arising from the sale of "personal use property". Cars are personal use property.
Refer to Canada Revenue Agency – Personal-use property losses. Quote:
[...] if you have a capital loss, you usually cannot deduct that
loss when ...

Ignore sunk costs and look to future returns. Although it feels like a loss to exit an investment from a loss position, from a financial standpoint you should ignore the purchase price. If your money could be better invested somewhere else, then move it there.
You shouldn't look at it as though you'll be more financially secure because you waited longer ...

The loan itself is not tax deductible; unless you took it as part of a mortgage, anyway, it's just a regular loan. Mortgage and Student Loan Interest deductions are special cases explicitly given tax-deductible status; other loans are not deductible (unless part of a business expense or other qualifying reason).
If this were a short sale (which you note it ...

Before the expiration date if there is no buyers, there is no market and you cannot sell them legally.
When they will expire worthless, you will be able to claim a tax loss.
Check this publication from IRS under options

Edited in response to JoeTaxpayer's comment and OP Tim's additional question.
To add to and clarify a little what littleadv has said, and to answer
OP Tim's next question:
As far as the IRS is concerned, you have at most one Individual
Retirement Account of each type (Traditional, Roth) though the money
in each IRA can be invested with as many different ...

Generally, to be able to write off worthless securities, you need to show that they're indeed worthless. It's not necessarily easy, as you need to prove that there's no way they will regain any value in the future.
What is usually done, instead, is very simple: you sell them. Many brokers are aware of this problem and will assist by buying these securities ...

Short term losses are applied:
Towards short term gains,
What remains is applied towards long term gains,
What remains is applied towards your AGI up to the limit of $3000,
What remains is carried forward to the next year.
So if in 2014 you have no capital gains at all and only $1000 capital losses - you'll reduce your overall taxable income by $1000. What ...

But would the IRS agree since the valuation at the probate action was
$150k and since it was purchased by my mother prior?
The IRS will not agree, but not for the reason you think.
Your father selling the house to you is what is called "related persons transaction". There are very clear rules as to who recognizes the loss, and when.
Assume your father ...

Capital losses from the sale of stocks can be used to offset capital gains from the sale of a house, assuming that house was a rental property the whole time. If it was your principal residence, the capital gains are not taxed. If you used it as both a rental and a principal residence, then it gets more complicated: http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/tx/ndvdls/tpcs/...

If the fund is "better" but materially the same (for example, in the same fund family but with lower expense ratio), then wash sale rules will kick in. If the fund is materially different (for example, selling US-stocks fund, buying international, or selling bonds fund and buying stocks) then you could probably claim the loss.
What is "materially different" ...